Status Updates

Official announcement : link-dead

Official news. Please feel free to copy and announce it everywhere you want this to be heard about: your blog, a news page, CNN…

introduction

link-dead: adj.

[MUD] The state a player is in when they kill their connection to a MUD without leaving it properly.

The Jargon File (http://catb.org/jargon/html/index.html)

link-dead is a follow-up to the succesful 2d multiplayer shooter Soldat (http://www.soldat.pl) made by Michal Marcinkowski. This game has been actually created in Valhalla thousands of years ago by Odin, the god of war himself. Mighty viking warriors used to train on this game before riding into battle to slay their enemies, to conquer their homeland and to make slaves of their women. This game brought the viking men pride and fame and thanks to it they reached eternal glory and now live in Valhalla. Now I’m bringing it back for you mortals to play it! Odin has blessed me and guides me in the process of creating the best game ever made! This game will rock, it will make a Man out of you, it will kick your fucken ass!!

concept

link-dead is about…
grunts
guns
machines
hackers
and ultimately about war

General mechanics and side-view will be the same as in Soldat.
Gameplay will be very realistic, much more slow-paced than Soldat, team tactics will be key in this game. No jet boots for traveling. Players will have to use their environment and machines for movement: doors, elevators, ladders, pads, flying machines and vehicles.

gameplay and setting

Not so distant future. A war has begun, between men and machines, both in cyber-space and in the real world. The player takes part in this struggle as a soldier or hacker.

Two teams fight each other. Both are located in underground bases. The surface world will be a post-apocalyptic setting, it reminds us of Terminator: Future Shock/SkyNet.
Each map consists of the underground and the outerworld. The outerworld is where mainly robots fight. It will be possible to control robots, droids, terminators, gun turrets, drones, sentry guns etc. They will be controllable via computer terminals located in the underground bases. It will be possible to hack these terminals; hack into the enemy network, open vaults and doors, move elevators, disable sentry guns and gain command over the enemy robots!

more to come

That’s a brief explanation of what the game will be about. More details, including screenshots, videos and explanations on how specific gameplay elements like hacking will look like, in the future. Wait for it because it will be great. Be sure to visit http://mm.soldat.pl for upcoming development news.

You were talking about some great graphics before(ie: about using pixel shaders) So my quiestion is: how high will the system requiements be?
I’m kinda suprised with the complexity of your gameplay idea, that;s definitly a good news :).

Sounds like a good idea, although I’m a bit worried that it’ll over complicate a game which is a sequel to a game based on simplicity; with Soldat, you run, shoot, and kill, however this game (from what I’ve read) seems quite complex. Hopefully it won’t be.

It’s maybe gona be a little more “complecated” but I think it’s gonna be as simple just more option and key to handle at the same time and cool future. Nothing that would make it impossible to play because MM knows that people like simple and fast to learn game

Can’t wait to see some screenies, videos, and finally the game ! w00t !
@the_ham
I don’t think you should be worried , as people will still play soldat after link-dead is out, imho. Also, Michal mentioned it is going to moddable, so i think someone will do a soldat conversion for link-dead in a very short time 😛 And btw this would open possibilities for a league featuring both games :O

Surely sounds interesting, because even though I’ve played Soldat for 5 years now and still like it, especially playing clanwars, I always missed the possibilities for team tactics. Yes, teamplay is important, but most of those awesome moments in which your team worked together perfectly to capture the enemy flag are merely based on coincidence, because of the game’s pace there isn’t much room for real elaborately planned tactics. So here’s hoping you will be able to deliver on just that. Though for being able to make full use of potential tactics I think it is very important to make the game be open for a clan community, as at least the concept rather sounds like link-dead will be based on public play, which I hope will not absolutely be the case.

But then again, you’re still in the early development stages, aren’t you? Or have you already gotten to working on the game’s actual content?
Lastly I just hope you don’t aim too high but rather start off developing a great fundament and only then start making the game more complex, so you don’t end up noticing that what you initially planned and aimed for doesn’t work out at all, as it seems to have been the case with Crimson Glory. But judging from the amazing experience you must have gotten through the development of Soldat and what came after it, I’m optimistic that this project will turn out as nothing less than the great next generation of 2D online team games, just give this promising project all the time and polish it deserves!

If the game is anything like Soldat only more advanced, I doubt it will be free. Though some kind of limited shareware version as a demo of sorts would still be nice, at least in case everyone interested wouldn’t buy it right away, anyway.

Soldat 2 never existed, Michal never said anything about it as far as I know, so this is just the latest project he is working on.
Of course the development of such a game is very time-consuming and a great effort, one that may most reasonably be made so it pays off in one way or another. And I bet Michal Marcinkowski is very far from developing a game merely for financial purposes.

Who said there will be only killing robots. Blood and gore is a must and there will be a lot of man killing, I promise.
I would love the game to be free but I need to make money out of it. I don’t know what model of selling the game will be best, maybe the same as in Soldat (paying for extra options).

// Create a forum for this project! it is too big to discuss it here :D:D:D
There will be one when the time comes. For now here and the thread in The Lounge on soldatforums is enough. A forum will probably be made for link-dead once the site is up and the game is in public alpha or beta (if MM decides to do testing publicly… I suggest he does ;))

I suppose the game will be worth money one way or another, so nobody should have a reason to complain if you are charged some for playing it

Michal, have you ever heard about the game “Silencer”? It is also a 2D online multiplayer shooter in which you fight but also hack, set in a cyberpunk scenario. Unfortunately the game couldn’t be played anymore since the servers have been shut down years ago and I guess it’s not known much, anyway. That’s the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silencer_(game)
Hm, apparently there’s been some progress just lately..

Well, anyway, I’ve finally posted the news about link-dead on Selfkill.com
Also it is featured on the great TIGSource.com!

This sounds awesome, but put my vote down for having deformable terrain in Link-Dead. I always like to see a battlefield that shows the scars of the battle as it rages, and there’s nothing like missing with an explosive and taking out some scenery instead, or even better, hitting and leaving nothing but a smoking crater.

Also. I think it would be epic, if, as everyone takes control of robots and fights it out on the surface, a few players grab drills and mining charges and gets to work tunneling to the enemy’s base, and when they breach it, all hell breaks loose and battles break out in the base and the tunnel as the defenders try to push them back, and maybe launch a counter-attack on their hackers.

Man… It seems you are constantly trying to outdo yourself 😀
I hope your new game will be a smash!!! Ill definetaly spread the word!!!
But to think about soldat 2…. well it would be great, but i was thinking about useable vehicles in soldat style… a big ass tank with a stationary gun on it and moving incredibly slow, with the ability to transport 2-3 soldiers on it/ in it..
That would be cool.
Keep up the good work man!

I am looking for new concept artists for this amazing project. Please sign up if you think you can match the high level competition. You will only have once chance but if you make it through you will become a living legend. A concept artist for Link-Dead, the ultimate game. If that doesn’t make you excited then nothing will. Link-Dead, the game of the century, it will be so amazing your head will blow up. Out of the 10000 applicants only 2 will be selected. You could be one of those 3. Think about it. Think.

Maybe some screenshots? What i see is around 60 comments about… well about annoucement it would be nice to comment on something we can see, we saw your great animation system, Maybe it’s time for maps now?

Well this definately seems like it will have potential. I was playin soldat way back in 1.05b and setup some of the first leagues and stuff and more tactics is what I’ve been waiting to hear for so long. It’s been a while since i’ve played soldat, a long while, to be honest I didn’t like the way it turned, although I always did like the game overall. I was reading through your blog too, I totally agree with how you feel about game developers, I was testing games at Activision for the last year worked on thp8, sm3, sm:fof, and guitar hero 2… and I couldn’t agree more with how you feel about retarded reasons for having to restart missions due to a lack of creativity / pure laziness. Also I’m really happy to hear this is gonna be cross platform because I have a mac now and well that would just be awesome. Keep postin info so I can see the progress on this one.
-Spike/Kiddo/Buki/the aka akai :p

When I saw this, I almost jumped out of my chair and went: “WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!”
This looks awesome, will there be a software rendering option for those with a better computer than video card?

ßurdæyım_Ahmet:
It isn’t available for download yet, it’s still in development. Just hold on, it’ll be released in good time…

Say Michal: Do you have a planned release date? I was just wondering, even though it looks like you’re really early in development.

underline:
Have you heard of Stick Soldiers 3? They didn’t have a definite release date, but they hoped to finish it in the next half-a-year or so. (Ok… Andrew Russell DID scrap SS3…) But still, if Mr. Marcinkowski(Or should I call him Michal?) doesn’t have a release date, then thats fine with me.

OMG!
that is soooo cool, i can’t wait!
please let there be some kind of mechwarrior bots in it, that you can use as vehicle :P, that would be so awesome. and somekind of C4/satchel charge bomby like things(remote detonate bombs). i always love that kind of stuff, and you can use it to breach gates of big doors… or something

Okay i just read some other comments, if you plan to put a cost on the game, then why don’t you try and recruit some other people as skilled as you to work on the game with you it would make production time take less and it would improve the quality of the game it’s just a sugestion,. If you do include a fee i will gladly pay it, as long as it’s a once only fee and not a recuring fee. Keep an open mind to suggestions as well, maybe someone will think of something great.

Concept artist…. hmmm…. didnt think about that… but im sure that the people working on this project are way more suitable and “in-game” for this kind of work. And if u really are an impostor( Michal Marcinkowski (impostor)), than please get a real life… Its so lame that u wright opinions in other peoples name…Dont u have any bones in your body?

MM you should make your game have destructability (eg. if you shoot certain things they will break but if you try to shoot through land to bypass a
terminal you only rip up the surface and waste your ammo)

!!!!CAN’T WAIT!!!!!!! It sounds SO AWSOME!!!!!
What you might want to watch though is that certain elements of the game aren’t unbalanced so that, for example if there was a certain vehicle that was easily destroyed by a weapon that anyone could easily get, noone would use that vehicle anymore because they know they will have no chance in that vehicle. Which would eventualy eliminate certain things because they would never be used. I’ve seen this happen too many times in games.

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